On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. – where are you now that we need you?

In short, there’s been no shortage of free expression about the Left’s death wishes.

Now comes martyrdom-seeking artist Yazmany Arboledo (here’s his blog) to whine about how his assassination fascination– in the form of “art” exploring the “character assassination” of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama–is being stifled in Manhattan.

This morning, a Boston-born performance artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama,” in neatly stenciled letters on the plate glass windows at street level.

By 9:30 a.m., New York City police detectives and Secret Service agents had shut down the exhibition, and building workers had quickly covered over the inflammatory title with large sheets of brown paper and blue masking tape. The gallery is across the street from the southern entrance to The New York Times building.

The police officers declined to answer any questions, and at first would not permit reporters to speak with Mr. Arboleda, who was wearing a black T-shirt and making cellphone calls from inside the makeshift gallery.

Later, Mr. Arboleda, who is 27, said in an interview: “It’s art. It’s not supposed to be harmful. It’s about character assassination — about how Obama and Hillary have been portrayed by the media.” He added, “It’s about the media.”

Mr. Arboleda said the exhibition was to open on Thursday and run all day.

The interview was abruptly ended as Mr. Arboleda was led off to the Midtown South police precinct for what he called an interrogation.

Reached by telephone this morning, Eric Joza, the building manager for the building at 264 West 40th Street, between Eighth and Seventh Avenues, said: “I had no idea what he was going to do. All I knew is that he was an artist and was going to use the store for two days: today and tomorrow.” There are offices above the storefront.

Here’s one part of his art exhibit on YouTube, marching across town with a penis-shaped sign trailed by the slogan “Once You Go Barack:”

Arboledo unintentionally illustrates the double standard in treatment between assassination art aimed at the GOP versus the Dems.

Why are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton treated any different, especially when it is clear that the exhibit in question is a critique of the media coverage of the just-concluded race for the Democrat presidential nomination? Could it be that Assassination Chic is only cool if the target is a Republican?